To speak with Master Foster instantly,on pressing business of the state,was the ready reply of Michael Lambourne.
Methinks you will find difficulty to make that good,said Tressilian in a whisper to his companion,while the servant went to carry the message to his master.
Tush,replied the adventurer;no soldier would go on were he always to consider when and how he should come off.Let us once obtain entrance,and all will go well enough.In a short time the servant returned,and drawing with a careful hand both bolt and bar,opened the gate,which admitted them through an archway into a square court,surrounded by buildings.
Opposite to the arch was another door,which the serving-man in like manner unlocked,and thus introduced them into a stone-paved parlour,where there was but little furniture,and that of the rudest and most ancient fashion.The windows were tall and ample,reaching almost to the roof of the room,which was composed of black oak;those opening to the quadrangle were obscured by the height of the surrounding buildings,and,as they were traversed with massive shafts of solid stone-work,and thickly painted with religious devices,and scenes taken from Scripture history,by no means admitted light in proportion to their size,and what did penetrate through them partook of the dark and gloomy tinge of the stained glass.
Tressilian and his guide had time enough to observe all these particulars,for they waited some space in the apartment ere the present master of the mansion at length made his appearance.
Prepared as he was to see an inauspicious and ill-looking person,the ugliness of Anthony Foster considerably exceeded what Tressilian had anticipated.He was of middle stature,built strongly,but so clumsily as to border on deformity,and to give all his motions the ungainly awkwardness of a left-legged and left-handed man.His hair,in arranging which men at that time,as at present,were very nice and curious,instead of being carefully cleaned and disposed into short curls,or else set up on end,as is represented in old paintings,in a manner resembling that used by fine gentlemen of our own day,escaped in sable negligence from under a furred bonnet,and hung in elf-locks,which seemed strangers to the comb,over his rugged brows,and around his very singular and unprepossessing countenance.
His keen,dark eyes were deep set beneath broad and shaggy eyebrows,and as they were usually bent on the ground,seemed as if they were themselves ashamed of the expression natural to them,and were desirous to conceal it from the observation of men.At times,however,when,more intent on observing others,he suddenly raised them,and fixed them keenly on those with whom he conversed,they seemed to express both the fiercer passions,and the power of mind which could at will suppress or disguise the intensity of inward feeling.The features which corresponded with these eyes and this form were irregular,and marked so as to be indelibly fixed on the mind of him who had once seen them.
Upon the whole,as Tressilian could not help acknowledging to himself,the Anthony Foster who now stood before them was the last person,judging from personal appearance,upon whom one would have chosen to intrude an unexpected and undesired visit.
